


we'll be the last ones dancing when the lights go out

by bicarolina



Category: RWBY
Genre: Do You Ever Wonder Why We're Here, Existential Crisis, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Love Confessions, discussions of the future, projecting? on MY fictional characters? its more likely than you think!, theyre good hets brent, vague mention of reincarnation or some shit idk we're just in it tonight lads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25555318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bicarolina/pseuds/bicarolina
Summary: No one told them surviving would be hard.
Relationships: Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	we'll be the last ones dancing when the lights go out

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know where everyone else is during this. i dont know whats going on, ever. words just happen in my usual less than 1k ficlet.

“Remember when I got struck by lightning?” 

He leans his head back to look her in the eyes. “Is this a rhetorical question?” 

She plows on, and he wonders if she even heard him. That might be part of why no one thinks he speaks often. “I’ve been thinking about it, and like, yeah, I was okay, but what if I hadn’t been? Most people die from lightning, right? What if I’d died?” Her voice takes a bit of a frantic tone as her fingers knead endlessly through his hair, picking up the pace. “Or literally any other fight we’ve been in? Do you think there are, like, spirits that protect us from bad stuff when we haven’t met our destiny—” 

And her voice shatters on that word, and he spins to look at her. He takes her hands in his. “Nora,” he says, because he wants to say a million words but he’s never been good at it, and he’s always been able to read her, but he hadn’t seen this coming, and now she’s crying and he feels like he’s drowning. “What happened?” 

“I,” she starts, he can feel her shake, “Why didn’t _we_ die that night, all those years ago? Why was it us? Why did we live, when there are so many others who would’ve been better, stronger, wiser?” 

He lets go of her hands but only to draw her onto his lap, and she instantly buries her face into his neck. “I can’t answer that. There has to be a reason, but I don’t think we get to know it yet.” He presses a kiss to her hair. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you all this time.” He doesn’t, it’s true. She’s always been there. Nora has been the only constant in his life. Always there, always breathing, always his. “You didn’t let me answer earlier. You’re…” He as to pause, because this is the most he’s been able to get in edgewise. “If you had died, I don’t know how I would’ve kept going.” He doesn’t miss how she grabs him tighter. “It still holds true today.” 

Her sobs don’t lessen. It hurts to watch her hurt, but he doesn’t know what the problem is specifically. Someone had mentioned it to them once, survivor’s guilt, but they’ve both wanted nothing more than to keep fighting. 

“I don’t want to die, Ren.” 

Oh. He can’t fix that. He can’t do nearly anything about that. “I don’t want you to, either.” He doesn’t want anything to happen to her, because she’s his and he’s hers and they are a matched set and he doesn’t know if he’d be able to function if she wasn’t there. He presses another kiss to her hair, but leaves his mouth pressed to her head. They can’t be any closer than this. 

“Why are we doing this? Why aren’t we, you know, living on our own, maybe in a small village, protecting them? Or even just on our own? You can cook, I can hunt, we can do odd jobs for things we can’t make on our own, we would be okay.” 

“We would. But what about everyone else?” When they’d first started at Beacon, he would be right beside her. But now? “We have a duty to the people.” 

She sighs, her sobs having slowed. He rubs circles on her back, and her fingernails ease out of his skin. “I’m scared.” 

“I am too.” He’d refused to picture a life without her, and he continues to do so. She’s a part of him, and he is a part of her. “We aren’t alone.” 

“I love you,” she says suddenly, still buried in his neck, still curled as tightly as possible against him. She presses her lips to his neck, and he feels a blush form where her lips had been. “I’ve always loved you, I always will, as a friend and my partner and my teammate and every other word that might exist.” 

He knows; he’s always known. How does he tell her? How does he find the words to cover exactly how he feels about her? 

“It’s okay if you don’t feel that way; you’ll always be my favorite no matter what and—” 

“I’m not great at words, you know that.” He doesn’t mean to interrupt her, but that’s not what he feels. “You’re my favorite, too.” He’d always known the day would come when she’d announce her feelings, and then he’d give his answer. He’d been trying to work it out for a while. 

She finally breaks away from his neck and looks up at him. Her turquoise eyes sparkle with new tears. “When we die, you’ll find me again, right?” 

“Until the end of time,” he tells her, because it’s true, he doesn’t know what comes next after they die, but there’s something between them that feels like more than just them. 

She tastes like tears and vanilla ice cream, and it’s exactly what he’d thought it’d be: gentle and quiet and unlike Nora herself in every way. Her fingers tangle in his hair again, and they stay like that for a while: curled together, kissing like the world wasn’t about to fall apart at their feet. 

It’s the least he can give her.

**Author's Note:**

> hi sorry i am struggling to exist thanks for sticking around im posting this from munich yes that munich because apparently i dont have anything better to do than to write sad hets at 9pm on a monday.


End file.
